The Fallout franchise is poised for a comeback with Fallout 5 but at the cost of Blackbird.
According to claims made on the Xbox Two Podcast by Jez Corden, Fallout 5 is officially greenlit at Microsoft. However, Bethesda might not be leading the development this time around.
Microsoft recently laid off thousand of employees and cancelled many games including Zenimax MMO, Blackbird. The MMO was in active development, but an executive decision was made to axe the project and assign those resources to Fallout 5.
From what I heard, it was a case of ‘Do we want to sink a ton of money into getting this [Project Blackbird] to a point where it can compete with the established players in the market, or do we want to allocate that investment towards making Fallout 5? – Jez Corden
Since Bethesda Game Studios is already committed to Starfield DLC and The Elder Scrolls 6, both of which are major projects requiring immense resources, it is reasonable to assume that Bethesda might not be leading the development of Fallout 5.
This makes it unlikely that Bethesda Game Studios can fully dedicate itself to Fallout 5 in the near term, increasing the likelihood that another studio, such as ZeniMax Online, could take on a significant role.
And just yesterday, it was confirmed that the Zenimax team is still intact, not let go like many others in the company after project cancellations.
As the parent company of both Bethesda Game Studios and ZeniMax Online Studios, Microsoft has the authority to shuffle resources across its studios but a Fallout game without Bethesda? I personally think that won’t be the case. Zenimax will likely act as a partner in development until Bethesda can take resources away from Starfield DLC.
Fallout 5 team will likely grow at that point with both Bethesda and Zenimax collaborating on the project. At least, that’s what makes sense to me.
